A new med-tech start-up offers a different way to treat mental disorders like depression - they use magnet pulses to send signals to the brain. According to the researchers, the method had an 87.5 percent remission success rate and it has no side effects.
For most cases of mental problems like depression, taking drugs has been a traditional option coupled with talk therapies and other usual activities. However, about 10-30 percent of patients will not respond to drug treatments. NeuroQore aims to replace drugs with magnet pulses with higher success rates.
However, the concept isn't new as brain stimulation via electric or magnet pulses has been used since mid-'90s to treat mental disorders such as depression, anxiety, ADHD, PTSD, and other types of addiction. Yet, it was not used as a primary method, and it seems like the idea was not fully explored until now.
The concept is called neurofeedback. The objective is to send desirable wave patterns on the brain via pleasant tones through the patient's ears. Then, with a successful series of positive messages to the brain, it stimulates to keep the positive pattern for a long time. It will help to maintain healthy brainwave patterns.
NeuroQore's approach is similar except for the medium used. Traditional neurofeedback method uses electric pulses or sounds, while NeuroQore uses rTMS technology. It sends the pulses directly to the brain. They also use biomarkers as physical evidence of improvement on patients with depression.
The method promise no side effects which enables the process to be used on anyone, anytime. But the limitation is that the NeuroQore process may not work with everyone. The company is based in Ontario, Canada. Led by Mehran Talenbijad, the team is now getting FDA approval to start using the method on a large scale of depression and other mental disorder cases.